Day in Photos: March 9, 2012

Pakistani Army soldier with the 20th Lancers Armored Regiment stands atop the 8000-foot mountain during a patrol near his outpost, Kalpani Base, in Pakistan’s Dir province on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

AP Photo

Tibetan Buddhist monks leave their prayer hall after prayers at Taersi Monestry in China’s northwest Qinghai province. Monks at the monestary have no plans to mark the March 10 anniversary of the uprising that led to the flight of the Dalai Lama into exile in 1959 as Tibetan inhabited regions of China remain tense after 20 or more self immolations.

AFP/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at the Port of Pascagoula, Miss.

AP Photo

Britain’s Jessica Ennis clears a hurdle in front of Ukraine’s Natallia Dobrynska during the 60m hurdles heat of the Women’s Pentathlon during the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Istanbul, Turkey.

AP Photo

A Greek youth performs skateboard tricks in Athens old town. Greek unemployment hit another record high and for the first time the number of young people without a job outnumbered those in work.

REUTERS

Haiti’s President Michel Martelly shows his eight Haitian passports during a news conference at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince. Martelly held a hastily arranged news conference on Thursday to prove he is not a US citizen in response to a mounting public campaign questioning his eligibility to hold office.

REUTERS

An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish boy stands dressed in a costume during celebrations for the holiday of Purim at the Belz Hasidic dynasty synagogue in Jerusalem. Purim is a celebration of the Jews’ salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther.

REUTERS

Lindsey Vonn skis down on her way to clock the fastest time during the first run of a women’s Alpine Ski World cup giant slalom competition in Are, Sweden.

AP Photo

A ground crew member cleans the windshield of a Qantas passenger plane at Adelaide airport. Shares in Qantas fell on March 9, after the Australian airline dropped plans to form an Asian-based premium carrier with Malaysian Airlines because deal terms could not be agreed.

REUTERS

Cossacks join hands to bounce a woman in the air at the annual folk festival to bid farewell to winter in the Siberian Cossack settlement of Sukhobuzimskoye in city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

REUTERS

People walk by the 330-ton fishing vessel Kyotoku Maru No. 18 which was flung half mile inland from Kesennuma port by the March 11 tsunami in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture. It has been nearly one year since a monstrous earthquake triggered a tsunami that roared across Japan’s northeastern coast, transforming once-pristine and thriving towns into waterlogged wastelands and sparking the world’s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter-century.

AP Photo

A Pakistani vendor sells corn at a beach in Karachi, Pakistan.

AP Photo

The northern lights or aurora borealis fill the western sky Friday, above the Russian Orthodox Saint Nicholas Memorial Chapel in Kenai, Alaska. The display of lights came in the aftermath of a solar storm that struck Earth on Thursday.

AP Photo

A full moon is seen over the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.